The regulator warned Avon in a letter dated October 5 that the claims on the company's website implied those products were intended to affect the structure or function of the human body, which would classify them as drugs.

The letter was posted on the FDA's website on Tuesday.

Avon was not immediately available for comment outside of U.S. business hours.

Earlier this month, Avon said Sheri McCoy would take over as chief executive in December, in a bid to turn around the world's largest direct seller of cosmetics, whose sales have slid in key markets and which is trying to settle a U.S. bribery probe.